Far Off Things - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847716555 ISBN 13: 9781847716552

Publisher: Three Impostors

Synopsis

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Machen’s birth, Three Impostors has produced a special commemorative edition of Far Off Things. The book is hard backed, with a dust jacket, and has a new foreword by Catherine Fisher, Young People’s Laureate for Wales, whose novel Incarceron was The Times Children’s Book of the Year in 2007. The text is annotated, indexed, and illustrated with seven black and white photographs. Cream paper is used throughout; there are marbled endpapers; the cover is green silk with gold blocking; and there is a ribbon bookmark. Only 250 individually numbered copies have been produced. Printed by Y Lolfa, Talybont, Wales.

Arthur Machen, (1863-1947), was born in Caerleon in south Wales, and lived throughout his childhood and adolescence in the Rectory at Llanddewi Fach, several miles to the north, where his father was the incumbent. From an early age he was entranced by the beauty and mystery of the countryside around his home, which had a powerful and enduring influence on his imagination: although he moved to London after leaving school and never again lived in Gwent, he returned to it time after time in his writing.

Machen’s literary career spanned seven decades and a variety of genres, though he is principally recognised today as the author of a number of weird and macabre tales including The Great God Pan, The Three Impostors, and The Hill Of Dreams. In recent years few of his books have been widely available, and his work has been kept alive by the enthusiasm of small publishers. Despite this relative obscurity, his influence has extended into most fields of the creative arts, and his admirers include figures as diverse as Mick Jagger, Rowan Williams, Barry Humphries, Jorge Luis Borges, and Oscar Wilde.

Machen’s habit of wandering at random through the streets of London, and his belief, evident in many of his stories, that hidden, wonderful and sometimes sinister worlds lie behind the mundane surface of everyday life, made him a key figure in the evolution of the concept of psychogeography, and prominent contemporary London writers Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd draw inspiration from him.

Far Off Things is the first volume of his lyrical, impressionistic memoir and it describes his childhood and youth in the Monmouthshire countryside, and his early years as a struggling writer in London. Beautifully written and full of humour, it evokes the lost world of the Welsh borders in the19th century, and contrasts it with literary and cultural life in the imperial capital.

Edition details

• Publisher: Three Impostors
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847716555
• ISBN 13: 9781847716552
• Binding: Hardcover